


First and Last

by Mark_Loafers



Series: Me and I - The Clara Oswald Adventures [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/F, First Christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 11:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5454995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mark_Loafers/pseuds/Mark_Loafers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara is alarmed to discover that Me has forgotten Christmas, and immediately drags her back to London - but bounty hunters are tracking them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First and Last

Far out in the Western Spiral Arm of the Universe, on the sun-singers of Akhet, an old nun crested the highest point of the asteroid Tiaanamat to find a 1950s American diner.

‘SNACKS AND GAS,’ the sign cheerily declared. This meant very little to a woman who had never been off-world, let alone to 1950s America.

The double doors flew open, and out strode Clara Oswald in waitress uniform with matching dark-blue tights. If she had to suddenly do a lot of running, she’d rather not do it in just a skirt.

The nun stared at her in shock. Clara stared back to be polite.

“Not interrupting anything, am I?” she said.

The nun stammered and shuffled towards her. “No, I just- is this your ship? It’s quite…”

She faltered.

“… Trendy.”

“Oi, don’t diss the DINER,” Clara scolded her, smiling. “It’s an acronym. Don’t know what it stands for, mind. I’ll decide that later.” She called over her shoulder. “Me, you coming?”

Me stepped out from the DINER, running a hand through her fringe. “Pardon me. Final checks.”

Clara scoffed, a playful glint in her eye. “That book’s been giving you strange ideas.”

“Excuse me,” said the nun, “but are you Clara Oswald?”

That caught her attention. “How’d you know my name?”

“The story speaks of you,” she said, her eyes wide from under her hood. “You came with the man in the box.”

Me stepped up beside Clara, looked to her for an explanation, but Clara was rapt, smiling gently as she figured it out.

“The woman who saved the sun-singers, who quelled the parasite with everything that could have been, should have been, and never was. Clara Oswald. You live immortal in our memories.”

“That’s so nice of you,” Clara beamed, placing a hand on the old woman’s shoulder. “I’m glad I could help. And by the way, I also live immortal in general. Lots of fun.”

The nun grasped Clara’s hand in her own. “Thank you.”

“It was nothing, really. Now, mortal, off you pop.”

The nun bowed deeply and shuffled back off down the slope for the journey back home. Clara and Me, side by side, looked out over the cloudy-red planet dwarfing the view, with misty asteroids for hundreds of miles.

“Tiny bit impressed?” Clara asked.

“It’s a lovely view.”

“Right, yeah.”

“But yes, I might be impressed with you if you tell me how you defeated the parasite she was talking about.”

“Knocked it out with a leaf.”

Me raised her eyebrows.

“What?” Clara smirked. “Would I ever lie?”

“Yes, I rather suspect you would.”

“Yeah, well.” She paused. “That’s beside the point, because I actually did implode a whole planet with one bit of foliage. But that’s not why I brought you here. Wait until you hear the singing. It’s a lovely festival, this. Only happens once every thousand years. A bit like the proper, fancy Christmas masses.”

“Christmas?” Me said absently.

Clara looked at her. “You can’t have forgotten Christmas.”

Me shrugged. “Is it an Earth festival?”

Clara laughed incredulously and turned on her heel back to the DINER. “Right, we’re going. Now.”

“Don’t try to boss me around,” Me smiled playfully, but she followed her. “I’m older than you.”

“We’re both immortal!”

“Yeah, but my birthday’s before yours.”

As Clara slammed the controls and the DINER phased away through space and time, it set off a little blip in a surveillance system.

Four roboforms tuned their clarinets. The targets were in the area.

About the same time, a policeman walked by the scrapyard which used to belong to old Foreman, rest his soul – but when did that restaurant turn up?

He had a mental wobble as the perception filter booted up, and wandered on regardless.

Clara cracked open the door and stepped out. “I’m starting to see the disadvantages of being stuck as a diner. Come on. Time for Christmas.”

Clara and Me wove through the scrap metal that littered the disused yard. Just as they cleared the entrance, they bumped into a familiar chin.

“Clara, there you are!” said Adrian in a flail of limbs. “I’ve been looking for you. Ready for the Christmas village?”

Clara blinked. She had agreed to something, hadn’t she? It was weeks ago in her timeline. “Yeah, absolutely!” she said quickly. “Sorry I’m late. If I’m late.”

Me’s lips parted in a moment of confusion. “Do you have to…”

Clara turned to Me, then back to Adrian, and whined a little helplessly. “No, it’s okay,” she insisted, answering the wrong question.

Adrian’s eyes darted between the two women. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt if you two are-”

“We’re not!” Clara cut across, again answering the wrong question. She turned back to Me. “Go get coffee or something. I’ll get out as soon as I can. Meet up at Harrods. You know your way around London?”

“I used to live here,” Me smiled.

“Right. Course.”

“Sorry, Clara, but we really have to go,” Adrian said restlessly.

Clara sighed, waved to Me in a what-can-you-do way, and got dragged off. Me dug her hands into the pocket of her jacket and wandered away to find something to do.

“So,” said Adrian to Clara. “Do you work at a restaurant now?”

“Sometimes. On weekends.”

“Just so long as you change. It’d be a bit of an odd look for Mrs. Claus,” he chuckled in an obligatory sort of way.

“Yeah!” said Clara. “Ah. Well. Oh.”

While Clara was pulling on a ridiculous Mrs. Claus costume, Me went to a café and watched the people pass through the shopping square. Lights seemed to be hanging on every available surface in this city, big toy Christmas elves were playing clarinets, and so many people were bustling about, arguing, laughing, shouting, singing. It was garish and overstimulating, but fuzzy and forceful. It gently impressed her old eyes.

She took a sip of her soy caramel latte, which she had ordered by guesswork. It was surprisingly okay.

The two big toy elves were playing clarinet in her direction now, all the way from across the square.

She tensed a bit and put her coffee down, but it was probably alright.

A laser shot out of the end of one of the clarinets. Me dropped out of her chair and rolled under the next table. It was almost definitely not alright.

The milling crowd cried out in alarm and swarmed away. The two elves tramped closer, taking aim. Me dashed out from under the table and grabbed one of the chairs. The elves both fired, but she dove between the beams and sharply caught the first in the side of the head with the chair. Its head was knocked clean off and sailed through the air. She impaled the second on the chair’s leg, kicked it down on its back, and crushed its face under her boot.

Those things weren’t up to much – cheap tech. But here’s the question – why were they shooting at her when she hadn’t even stuck her nose into trouble yet?

She couldn’t know, but she had a hunch – and Clara wasn’t safe.

Clara knew perfectly well she was in a fix. She just didn’t know about the killer robot elves just yet. “She’ll be an opera singer when she grows up,” she forced herself to laugh in a motherly sort of way as a three-year-old squealed and whined like a burning engine.

As she spoke to a shy boy on her knee, Clara spotted someone peeking in through the window and sighed internally. Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t.

No use. In a matter of seconds, Courtney Woods had forced her way into a Christmas village meant for kids half her age. She stormed right up to Mrs. Claus and forcibly sat on her lap. “Hi, Mrs. Claus-wald,” she said faux-sweetly.

“Hello, little lady,” Clara smiled furiously, wheezing a little under Courtney’s weight. “You’re a big girl to be around these parts, aren’t you? What’s your name?”

“I’m Courtney Woods, who the hell are you?”

Clara, her smile fixed in cement, looked across to the two guys in elf suits with clarinets. No response. Apparently, no help was coming from them. Fine. “Oh now, there’s no need for that kind of attitude, young lady! You’ll end up on my lovely’s Naughty List if you don’t-”

“Your lovely is dead.”

Clara dropped the voice. “If you talk like that about Danny Pink again, I will actually have you suspended. Scarper, now.”

Courtney baulked, dropped off Clara’s lap, and slipped away sharpish, shamefaced. Clara felt a tiny bit guilty, but mostly smug.

A sharp, piercing sound with a flash of light. The little kids starting wailing immediately, and Clara turned to face them – the robomorphs. She grasped around for something to point threateningly at them. All she had was a tangerine.

She leaped to her feet all the same. “Right, who’re you lot?”

“We have been hired to collect you,” said one of the robomorphs – he was the one doing less work and as such was probably the one in charge. “Come quietly. We know your weaknesses.”

Clara scoffed. “You think just because I’m an English teacher I don’t know how to handle a couple of robots?”

“Incorrect,” said the robomorph as they took aim at the children. “You are known, Clara Oswald, and so are your weaknesses. Emotions get the better of you.”

Clara faltered, then took stock. First priority was to protect the kids. After that, she wasn’t going to get captured if she could help it. This would only work out if she could come up with something very quickly.

“Right,” she said. “I’m going to win,” she said, which was a good start. “Because,” she said.

Hopefully something would happen soon and she could take the credit.

“Because,” she continued. “I,” she said. “Have,” she said.

She took a moment to consider what would be a good word to say next.

She held up the tangerine. “A grenade!”

The robomorphs head-tilted in unison, which was essentially the only way they had of emoting any degree of alarm. “This tactic is foolish. Any explosive weapon is also likely to harm the children.”

“Yeah, well, it’ll also take you out. Bit of collateral damage, but you have to beat the monster.”

“We are not fooled by your bluff. We know this is not your way.”

“Yeah, well, what if it is?” Clara snapped. “What if you’re bluffing and it turns out you’re wrong and I pull the pin on this and-”

“Scans indicate that there is no pin on your device.” A pause. “Nor is there any explosive.”

“Alright, it’s a tangerine, but only because I had short notice and couldn’t lay my hands on something more dangerous, like a Jammy Dodger. But you should still not try to shoot anyone or kidnap anyone because… I… am… running out of things to say, and-”

At which point Me leaped through the window with a crash, speared one robomorph’s head with a toy wooden sword, dislodged it, and used it to knock off the other robomorph’s head. The kids all cheered.

“Nice one,” said Clara, smiling in relief. “When did you learn to use a sword like that?”

“The 9th century,” said Me. “Although I should return this sword.”

Clara grinned and gave all the kids a thumbs up. “You all go make sure your parents are okay after that, right?”

*

With the perception filters up, Clara and Me opened the doors of the DINER and sat down, their legs dangling out over the Thames as they drank their hot chocolates together. It was night now, and London was all Christmas lights shimmering in the water below.

“Don’t suppose you have any idea what those gnomes were?” said Me.

“Elves, actually.”

“Are you sure they’re not gnomes? You know gnomes, don’t you?”

“I know gnomes. They’re from my time.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“They weren’t gnomes! They were elves! There’s a difference!”

“What difference?”

Clara considered this. “Gnomes are in gardens, and they’re a bit grumpier. Elves are more cheerful.”

“I’d say those robots were a bit grumpy.”

“Yeah, well, they were grumpy elves.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Of course it doesn’t make any sense. We just fought grumpy robot elves.”

“But you’re forgetting the real question,” said Me. “Why would they attack us?”

Clara hummed. “They didn’t actually say they wanted to kill me. Just ‘collect’ me, which is nice.”

Me sighed. “That makes sense. There are always people in this world looking for the secrets to immortality.”

“Yeah?”

“Even the Time Lords prefer not to help people cheat death, and the Mire don’t have enough medical chips for the whole universe. No, there are people who would keep us hooked up in laboratories and study us, trying to discover the secrets of immortality so they could recreate it for themselves.”

“Well, you can see their point,” said Clara.

Me gave Clara a knowing look. “We’re not talking about x-rays,” she said. “We’re talking about dissections. Your brain would be removed. Cut open. Mapped. Diced.”

Clara swallowed nervously. “Pass, thanks.”

“Well, you know you’re going to die eventually.”

“You seem a bit hung up on that. Like, most people know they’ll die eventually.”

“I suppose,” said Me. “But that doesn’t mean it makes sense to be so afraid of it.”

“Well, let’s put it this way,” said Clara. “Back in the Christmas village, I threatened the grumpy robot elves with a tangerine by telling them it was a grenade, but-”

“I’m going to stop that sentence halfway, because I doubt the second half will solve the philosophical quandaries of mortality.”

Clara sniggered. “Shut up, you. Fine, how about other people dying? I know you’re scared of that.”

Me looked down. “I’ve had more than that than I ever wanted. More than I was built to take.”

Clara put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how that feels.”

“If you stay long enough, you won’t have to.”

Clara looked out at London lit up before them. “But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?” she said. “Every Christmas, there’s so much coming and going, and you see friends and family you haven’t seen in ages? And you don’t know if it’s the last time you’ll see them, so you enjoy it while you can. That’s what it is. Every Christmas is last Christmas.”

Me smiled quietly. “I think I get it.”


End file.
